The core of psychopathic personality: Emotion, attention, motivation or all three?

Dr Hedwig Eisenbarth, University of Southampton, UK

Psychopathic personality is characterized by low empathy, low remorse, lack of responsibility for others, high interest in personal gain as well as impulsivity, poor behaviour control and antisocial behaviour. Highly psychopathic individuals contribute at large to the amount of criminal behaviour across the globe, also due to increased rates of recidivism. A significant line of research regarding the neurophysiological underpinnings of psychopathy points to low affective response to emotional and in particular to threat related cues. Brain networks related to fear seem to show lower activity, to be less connected and the respective brain regions smaller in volume. However, these effects have been challenged by findings pointing to a moderating effect of attention allocation. The related response-modulation-hypothesis and the competing fear-deficit-hypothesis differ in their explanation of low threat reactivity in highly psychopathic individuals. Further, new hypotheses add the question about the potential role of motivational factors. How can those different findings be explained, or even integrated?

Date

Friday, 28 July 2017

Time

12:00pm - 1:00am

Audience

Public

Event Category

Sciences

Event Type

Seminar

Campus

Dunedin

Department

Psychology

Location

William James Seminar Room 103, William James Building, 275 Leith Walk, Otago Campus